The Infidel Volume I Part 22

"Escaped!" echoed Cortes. "Thou art beside thyself! And the villain Alguazil, has he fled with them? I will tear his flesh with pincers!

What! release the infidels, under my eye?"

"So please you," said Guzman, "this, I think, was no resolved treachery, but an effect of infatuation. The wine that came to us to-day, was too strong for the watchmen: where they got it, I know not; but I found them sound asleep at the open door."

"They shall be scourged, till they drop more blood than they have drunk wine," said Don Hernan, furiously. "And the prison-guards also? Hah? The prisoner has escaped?"

"Not so," said the cavalier: "all's well there, save--"

"And Villafana? Speak me the word--Has he fled?"

"Senor mio, no: he is in the prison, carousing with Juan Lerma, as the guards say. I heard his voice through the door."

"Carousing? does Juan Lerma take his death so merrily? By'r lady, devil as he is, it is a sin to slay him!"

"As to the prisoner," said Guzman, "I know not whether he be merry or not; but I myself (for I had mine ear to the door,) heard Villafana smack his lips, and vow he 'would drink no more, this being no time to be thick-witted.' But every one knows Villafana: his bibbing once brought him to the strappado."

"Ay; and it shall bring him to the gallows.--It is the fate of the can-clinker--all spoken in three words--drunk, whipped, and gibbeted!--Didst thou worm naught from the guards? They were of his own appointing."

"Not a syllable," replied Guzman: "I do believe they have been too much frightened, and are now penitent men."

"It may be," said Cortes, "it may be; but I would I could look into the dreams of Villafana. If I punish him for the flight of the amba.s.sadors, it may be that I disperse an imposthume before it comes to a head; or it may prove, that I drive the matter into the more vital organs of this body politic, till all be corrupted and consumed. What say ye to a little torture inflicted on Villafana himself? Yet he is a bold dog, and may not speak. They say he winced not under the lash. I swear to you, my friends, I am in a strait."

While Cortes thus admitted the difficulty in which he felt himself pressed, and the cavaliers were divided in their counsels, they perceived a common soldier intrude himself into the chamber, and boldly approach them.

"Hah!" cried Alvarado, ever hot of temper, "who art thou, Sir Gallows-bird, that bringest thy knave's pate among cavaliers in council?"

"Hold! touch him not; 'tis the Barba-Roxa!" exclaimed Don Hernan. "What impertinence is this, sirrah? Who bade thee hitherward?"

"G.o.d and my good saint," said Gaspar, flinging himself on his knees, and adding, with the greatest impetuosity, "Pardon, senor! pardon for two unhappy men! Or if that cannot be, why pardon then for _one_; and I care not how soon you hang up the others."

"What means the fool? Art thou distracted?"

"Senor!" cried the soldier, wringing his hands, "I am a knave and traitor. Grant me the life of Juan Lerma, who meant you no wrong, and I will give you, for the rope and sword, two hundred and forty such traitors as the world never saw, and myself among them; for I have signed my name with knife and arrow, and sworn myself to brotherhood, under the pains of h.e.l.l, which I care not how soon may came upon me."

"Let some one of you look to the door," said Cortes, quickly: "and see that the sentinels keep their eyes open.--How now, Gaspar! what is this thou sayst? Art thou indeed a villain? I should have struck on the mouth any soldier that had said it of thee."

"I am what I said," replied Gaspar; "your excellency refused to listen to me, when I pleaded for Juan Lerma; and I was incensed. I said to myself, senor, 'I have saved your life, and yet you deny me the life of my friend, who, in ignorance, broke a decree, yet knew no malice.'

Besides, senor, you called me a dog,--'an officious, presuming dog;'

whereas I was not a dog _then_, but _now_. Well, senor, while I was in a pa.s.sion, the devil came to me, and tempted me, and I signed my name to my perdition."

"What!" said Alvarado, recoiling with devout horror, "hast thou really signed over thy soul to Satan? We will burn thee, thou devil's penitent, in a hot fire!"

"Speak on," said Cortes. "What meanest thou by this mummery? What devil is this? for, though Satan be walking now among us, yet, I think, it could not be he."

"It was Villafana," replied Gaspar; "and heaven pardon me, for I think it must be Apollyon in his likeness!"

At this communication, the cavaliers all stared at one another, and Cortes exclaimed,

"Two hundred and forty men! What! are there so many knaves of his party?"

"Ay, and many more, who will help, but will not put down their names upon paper," replied Gaspar. "But your excellency says nothing of Juan Lerma. If you will pardon him, your excellency shall hear all."

"How, sirrah!" cried Cortes, sternly, "Do you avow yourself a sworn traitor, and yet dictate to me terms of mercy? Speak, or you shall have that to your brows, which will bring out words with screams."

Gaspar sprang to his feet,--boldly, fearlessly, and even insolently, returning the look of the Captain-General:

"Your excellency has no heart, and I have," he cried. "Do your will upon us both; and reckon my death to your conscience, as you do that of Juan Lerma. You shall not have a word more. Here are my arms.--What cavalier will demean himself to tie them? I will meet your excellency at the judgment-seat."

"Thou art but a fool," said Cortes, moderating his anger,--or, at least, mollifying the severity of his accents; for his countenance yet gleamed with wrath. "Thou knowest, that, having saved my life at Xochimilco, I can, in no case, take thine."

"But I leave that to the laws, without asking any mercy," said the Red Beard, obstinately: "I ask the life of Juan Lerma, condemned without law."

"Dost thou impugn my justice, fellow?" cried the ferocious De Olid. "I swear to thee, when thou art brought to be judged, I will give thee a double quant.i.ty, for this very reason."

While the cavalier gave utterance to so excellent a proof of his equity, Alvarado, with whom Gaspar had been a favourite, whispered in his ear,

"Speak out, and fear not. It stands not with the captain's honour to barter men's lives for knave's confessions; yet he shall pardon the young man, thy friend, as I am thy guarantee."

"What say ye, cavaliers?" cried Cortes: "does it become me, to remit a sentence of death, at such mutinous intercession?"

Before any of the officers could reply, Gaspar, confiding in the promise of Alvarado, threw himself again at the general's feet, crying,

"Senor, I am not a mutineer, but a penitent. I am mad to think that one,--so good a friend, so valiant a soldier, so true a follower, (for there is no falsehood in Juan Lerma,) should die for a small matter,--saving Don Francisco's presence,--when there are so many rogues about us, that go unpunished. But I leave him to your excellency's mercy, trusting that your excellency will reconsider the judgment, and release him. Therefore I will speak, in this trust; and I pray heaven to remember the act, be it merciful or be it cruel.--This is what I have to say: In my pa.s.sion, I betook me to Villafana; who, promising to save Lerma's life, I signed with him; though the first act of guilt was to take your excellency's life. Holy mother of heaven! pardon me; but I was very much incensed. Well, senor, I found on the paper the names of two hundred and forty men, and I will tell you such as I remember; but if you will send to the prison, and suddenly seize the Alguazil, you will find the list in his bosom.--"

"Quinones, see thou to this," said Cortes, turning to the master of the armory, who made one of the council. "Take with thee none but hidalgos, and be sudden, making no noise and shedding no blood--Yet stay: this will not do, neither. Hark thee, Gaspar, man, when shall this precious earthquake rumble into the upper air?"

"To-morrow," replied the soldier; and then, to the horror and astonishment of all present, he divulged the whole scheme of a.s.sa.s.sination, as Villafana had himself spoken it in the prison.

"With a letter from my father, too!" cried Cortes, apparently more struck with the heartless barbarity of the stratagem, than with anything else in Gaspar's communication: "This is indeed the Judas-kiss, the--Faugh! these were the words of Magdalena!"

While he muttered these words to himself, he was roused by a sudden voice at the great door, and heard distinctly the unexpected voice of Villafana, saying, as he wrangled with the guards,

"Oh, 'slid, you take upon you too much. I come at the order of the general."

"Admit Villafana," said Cortes, in tones that penetrated loudly to the farthest limits of the room, for the cavaliers were stricken into a boding silence at the accents of the Alguazil: "Admit my trusty Villafana." And Villafana entered.

He was evidently flushed with wine, and it was for that reason, doubtless, that he did not seem to observe the presence of his forsworn a.s.sociate, nor the suspicious act of two cavaliers, who stole from the group, and took possession of the door by which he had entered. He approached with a reckless and confident, though somewhat stupid, air, exclaiming, after divers humble sc.r.a.pes and salaams,

"I come at your excellency's bidding, according to appointment. This was the hour, please your excellency--But 'tis a scurvy night, with much thunder and lightning."

"Ay, truly," said Cortes, with a mild voice, while all the rest stood in the silence of death; "but, being so observant, Villafana, how comes it you have not remarked that you are here without the Indian Techeechee, whom I commanded you to bring hither at this hour?"

"Senor," said the Alguazil, a little confused, "that old Ottomi is a sly dog, and, I doubt me, not over-honest."

"I doubt me so, too," said Cortes, in the same encouraging tones; "yet, honest or false, sly or simple, methinks thou shouldst not have suffered him to escape."

"Escape! what, Techeechee escape!" cried Villafana with unaffected surprise: "Ho, no! I did but give the gray infidel a sop of wine, and straightway he hid himself in a corner, to sleep off his drunkenness.

And,--and,--" continued he, with instinctive though clumsy cunning,--"and I thought it would be unbeseemly to bring him to your excellency, in that condition. I beg your excellency's pardon for making him acquainted with such Christian liquor; but it was out of pity, together with some little hope of converting him to the faith; and, besides, I knew not his head was so weak. I will fetch him to your excellency in the morning."